The "Floating" Licks You Didn't Know You Needed

Today I'm going to be showing you some really cool licks, phrases, and passages that can really spice up your bluegrass lead solos. I'll not only show you the licks, but I'll also show you how to play them in the context of classic tunes and really make them your own. Ah, stick around. Hey there, it's Aaron Jaxon coming to you today. So what I've got for you are just a handful of my very favorite open string floating licks. Put simply, these are licks and phrases and passages that make deliberate use of open strings, which when you play them correctly and with good technique and timing and tone on a flat-picked acoustic guitar really sound cool and can really add another dimension to your bluegrass solos. So as always, you can get the tabs for this lesson down in the video description and in the top pinned comment. So let's jump into the lesson. Okay, so before I get into the specific licks here, let me go through and just kind of show you the general idea here. So, um, so here's what these licks do. Like I was saying, they make deliberate use of open strings. So just an example that I like to show people here, let's just take this basic G major scale kind of closed position, um, starting on the 3rd fret that goes—

okay, I'll try that again.

Okay, okay. So if we were wanting to play that as more of a floating lick or a floating passage, we would do this. We would do Okay, pretty cool, huh? Okay, so to kind of cite my sources here, and I don't want to get too, you know, long into the history here, I first heard, um, Brent Mason talked about that in his first Hot Licks video that I had, you know, when I was in high school and I'd drive my family crazy by, you know, sitting in the living room and using the only TV and VCR we had in the house and just like trying to learn Brent Lix all day. Um, but he, he showed that exact, um, example, um, because he uses ideas like that a lot. And he was saying that that kind of goes back to Chet Atkins. I think Chet Atkins was one of the first people to really start using those. You can hear Jerry Reed use a lot of those ideas. And then, you know, but the, the thing about it is though, with fingerpickers or with like teleplayers, is they've got, you know, multiple picks. We have one pick here, so it's particularly challenging on— for, for flatpicking guitar. But when you can— when you pull pull it off and do it right, it's really cool. So one more time, you know, what we're doing there is, um, just instead of— we're starting with that 3rd fret of the 6th string, and then we're doing the 5th string open, kind of stretching up here to the, you know, 7th of the 6th, 3rd of the 4th, and then Okay, and I will include that on the tabs there, but that's what we're doing. We're deliberate— we're making deliberate use of open strings here. Okay, so that's the general idea, and again, you can reference the tabs if you want to go a little bit deeper into that example. But that's just how we would take a basic G major scale, and instead of, you know, just using the closed position, we would play that as like a floating passage. Okay, so let's go into the first lick here. So, uh, this lick is going to go like this.

We'll do—

okay, so what we're doing here, um, let me kind of slow it down here for you.

We'll do—

that's kind of the beginning of that lick there. So 4th open, hammer to the 4th fret, 3rd open, 7th fret of the 4th, 2nd string open, 7th fret of the 3rd, and then open 1st string. And then let's bring our pinky over here, slide from 7 to 8 on your 2nd string. Okay, so one more time.

Okay, again.

Okay, and then so once we get up there to that 8th fret of the 2nd string, let's come back down. We're going to do a descending part. We're going to do— okay, so 7 to 8 on the 2nd string, 1st string open. Let's do 7, 5 on the 3rd to the 2nd string open, 7th fret on the 4th string to the 3rd open, 7th fret on the 5th to the 4th open. Let's do 8 to 7 with a slide on the 6th, 5th open, 3rd fret of the 6th string. Okay, one more time all the way through here, nice and slow. Okay, so yeah, how cool is that? How cool is that? So if I was to play that with all closed strings or closed position, it would be like, um, um, All right, so be it, you know, which is not bad, but it's kind of a boring kind of scale passage. It's not terrible, but it's not this. Okay, so There's the lick there. Now what I want to do for you is I want to play this lick in context. So real quick, I'm going to throw this lick into a very famous fiddle tune that I'd say a lot of y'all watching this know called Blackberry Blossom. It'll sound like this. Okay, so I'm just going through there and like basically I'm just, I'm throwing that lick in at the very end of the A part of Blackberry Blossom. So if this is like the— we'll play the A part twice on that. So if this is like the second A part Okay, so there we go. That's a really cool place to put that lick in right there. It just kind of tweaks the listener's ear just a little bit. It's a little unexpected passage though that works over that tune really well. So again, that's one of my favorite little bluegrass floating licks there. So let's go into the next one here. Okay, love this little floating lick out of D major here. And I got this one— I've covered this one on this channel before, but I got this one from Kenny Smith. It's from his Studebaker album, and I think the tune— it's called Snowshoe or Snowshoes. He just— he ends it with that. All right, beautiful little floating lick out of D here. And just to play that real slow here for you, that'll go Okay, so up here, and then we'll do— so that's 7th fret of the 2nd string to the 1st string open, 7th fret of the 3rd to the 2nd open, 7th fret of the 4th to the 3rd open, 9th fret of the 5th to the 4th open. Okay, pretty cool, beautiful little resonant sounding floating lick there. So now let's hear that in context, and I want to play that, um, at the end of another famous fiddle tune that I'd say most of y'all know called Whiskey Before Breakfast. It'll sound like this. Okay, same deal with this one. I'm just throwing that lick in at the very end of the A part of Whiskey Before Breakfast. So again, we play the A part twice. So here, let's just pretend like this is the second time through the A part. Okay, so, uh, I stopped right there, and then right before I went into that lick, I did, which is, you know, it's, it's Doc Watson. Billy Strings uses it all the time too, but we'll do— and then into our floating lick. All right, very cool. And again, just adds a little flavor, adds a new dimension, and it just kind of, you know, makes the listener perk up just a little bit there. So that's a really cool lick and a great place to use that. Yeah. All right, let's do one more. Okay, so for this one, I am gonna go ahead and put the capo on the 2nd fret because the tune that we're gonna use it in is gonna be played with the capo on the 2nd fret. But this lick is gonna go like this.

We'll do—

okay, so this is another one that I've covered. I think I covered this in my, you know, 10 Bluegrass Licks Every Guitar Picker Needs to Know. Okay, so let me play that lick nice and slow here for you, and it'll go like this. Okay, so real quick, let's contrast, um, like if I played that same melodic passage but all in a closed position, you know. Um, okay, so not bad, a pretty cool sounding little bluegrass lick. Ah, which is not bad, but it's not this. Like, just hear how much more resonant and, um, open and sustaining that sounds. So closed position, and then with as the floating lick. Okay, very cool. But now let's have some context here. So what I'm going to do now is I'm going to use this lick in another classic fiddle tune that I'd say most of y'all watching this know called Gold Rush, and that'll sound like this. Okay, so kind of like I did with Whiskey Before Breakfast and Blackberry Blossom, I'm kind of throwing this lick in at the very end. So now, you know, doing the A part twice, let's pretend like this is the second time through. Now I did throw in one other little passage. So, you know, when you normally play the A part of Gold Rush, so instead of doing it like that, I did I went ahead and threw in a little floating lick right there. All right, and then after that, to end the phrase there, so One more time on Gold Rush here. And there we go. So 3 of my very favorite open string floating licks here. There's obviously an infinite amount of ways that you can do this, and there's a lot of players in other styles that use these a lot. You know, fingerstyle players, you know, I think this goes back to Chet Atkins, but you could hear Jerry Reed use it. Tommy Emmanuel uses these kind of licks, um, all the time. And, you know, teleplayers like Brent Mason and Johnny Hyland will use them all the time. But, you know, in the flatpicking world, um, Um, you know, Tony Rice definitely would make use of these, but really, like, listen to Kenny Smith. Kenny Smith really kind of came along and kind of took these ideas to another level. And another guitar player that I think just does not get enough credit in the flatpicking style because he really has his own unique style and uses a lot of these is Tim Stafford. Big shout out to Tim Stafford. Um, I think he's one of the most underrated players, um, in this style, and he really, really has a unique approach, uses a lot of these open string floating licks. So you can check out all of his stuff with Blue Highway. Um, I think he played with Alison Krauss before that. You know, he's done a bunch of session work and he's got a bunch of solo albums too. So definitely check out Tim's playing to hear how some, you know, floating licks and some of these deliberate use of open strings sounds in the context of bluegrass music on a flat-picked acoustic guitar. So as always, thank you so much for hanging out, and I will see you next time.